


aeonian

by seabass



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Gen, Groundhog Day AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5504072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabass/pseuds/seabass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Groundhog Days In-Canon AU: Speirs is stuck in a timeloop and has to relive everything from the start of the invasion"</em>
</p>
<p>There’s no end to it.</p>
<p>From a calculative standpoint this is probably Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	aeonian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tire_daile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tire_daile/gifts).



> you asked for it to not get too dark, so here i am, ruining your christmas (i'm sorry i'm sorry)

“Without mercy, without compassion, without remorse.”

It’s the same beautiful day.

“All war depends upon it.”

A battalion waits beyond the hills, tanks soon to follow.

Blithe closes his eyes, nods.

-

Foy is a fixed point. 

Toye goes AWOL from the hospital on a December day and Guarnere hears his shouts around the shelling of sporadic German artillery. George Luz smokes Lipton’s first cigarette, often with a dud between his ankles. Buck Compton chokes.

Blithe never makes it past Foy.

Bill Guarnere does, sometimes.

Malarkey doesn’t, more often than not.

Speirs makes the run to Item every time. And he makes the run back.

-

Maybe it’s the fifth time around and Liebgott smolders.

Webster dies in Holland, Grant in Belgium, Tipper in Carentan, by an airstrike meant for the two of them. Alley dies when Lieb can’t keep his mouth shut along Holland train tracks. Sisk is shot dead in Bastogne. Six million Jews dead in Europe. 

Liebgott gets burly and quiet. He aims quicker, keeps his finger on the trigger when his barrel faces to the ground, sleeps with a round in the chamber by Hagenau. 

Landsberg is harder than the first few times.

He recognizes the smell, no forgetting the rot of the dead. The Germans in town hold a stillness that now is malevolent, their stubborn reserve is disturbing. 

Speirs steals more, breaks more, stares more.

How these people continue to meet his eyes is the million dollar question.

Liebgott lifts his sidearm to a baker’s head and shuts him up fast.

Says, “shut up, you Nazi fuck.”

And, “oh, you’re not a Nazi, my mistake. You fat fucking prick. How about a human being? Are you one of those?”

He licks his lips; his clammy palms twist into the baker’s apron. 

“No,” he says.

Martin sees it in his eyes, something Speirs recommended to a soldier long ago. Before the baker can sob or plead Martin has Lieb off him. Stares him down with fury and understanding. Stares him down and understands because Randleman went down three months ago and Martin can’t suffer to see the difference between bakers and soldiers and wives. 

“Hit the road, Liebgott.”

Liebgott clicks his weapon into his belt. He doesn’t turn back.

He doesn’t make the boat to New York.

He is shot in the head by a replacement from Item. Maybe because he’s taller than Grant, or the way he turns his head, or just the cruel endless cycles of the Butterfly Effect, but Liebgott doesn’t make it to the neurosurgeon, doesn’t make it off the ground with breath still in him.

Roe takes his tag and Winters mails a letter to his mother in Oakland.

Speirs begins again before it reaches US soil.

-

“You know why you hid in that ditch, Blithe?”

“I was scared,” he whispers.

“We’re all scared, Private.”

“Sir?”

“Get some sleep.”

-

He doesn’t make captain when Malarkey’s boys get the dud. 

He mourns Lipton, and for the first time in two years worth of Foy’s frosty December mornings, he hopes. 

Hopes he will wake up on the morning of D-Day in the belly of a C-47.

Winters yells, “Malarky! Get yourself over here.”

Speirs stops on the tips of his toes. 

“Get out there! Relieve Dike and take that attack on in.”

And Speirs should still be with Dog but his feet walk him miles to Foy.

Peacock sits shivering behind Winters and Winters doesn’t look at him.

-

When Blithe lives through Carentan, Johnny Martin doesn’t. If Martin goes down Bill Guarnere doesn’t hear Toye months later in the woods. Roe does. Or Buck. And once it was George Luz.

George Luz is a lucky man.

He hears Luz correct Cobb.

“It’s not luck.”

“What is it, then?”

“Pity, maybe.”

Pity from cruel gods, casting him to live 100 unknowing lives with Speirs, never to fall.

“You looking for a scar to bring back home, Luz?” Perco says.

“I’m looking for a hot nurse and a warm meal at the hospital. If I’ve got to pay a Kraut every cent I’ve made since Currahee to land myself with two weeks bed rest I’ll do it, but I don’t feel like I should be doing these sausage sniffers’ job for them.”

Lives and lives later George stands over Lip’s foxhole in Foy and smokes his last cigarette. And Speirs should be with Dog, but he’s beside Luz.

And Luz says, “It should have been me. Every time it should have been me. Not Lip. Not Muck, Penkala. Not Blithe. Not any of them.”

-

Between the quick tips of Roe’s fingers, Ron breathes. 

“Speirs,” Roe says, “Speirs, keep your eyes open. Can you do that for me?”

Shifty isn’t applauded for taking down the sniper in Foy and Speirs has a hole in his chest.

Lipton kneels over him, looking lost like a child.

Huntington must be a gentle place. With long, green pastures and sweet summer air. 

A place Speirs will see Lipton back to, if it means death in the mud and Roe wasting the last of his morphine and bandages.

His chest feels hollow, his words won’t leave him.

Lipton doesn’t hear, “Hell, they have you, First Sergeant.”

It’s still a fair bargain.

It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.

He sighs, relieved.

He wakes up to the hum of a big plane.

-

Speirs doesn’t slaughter the Germans on his first day in Normandy. He doesn’t pass out Welsh’s cigarettes and send Malarkey on his way or leave a dozen corpses rotting on the road.

He takes their weapons to town and sends them packing North, no camps to send them to, no spare men to lead them.

The soldier from Oregon is a great American, Malarkey tells him.

“He’ll go back home to his pops,” he laughs, “Maybe I’ll look him up when I get back. I know a great couple right out of town that will be looking for work. I should write them a letter, tell them to keep an eye out for him.”

Speirs finds the Oregon boy in the trenches hours later, hovering, timid, over Lewis Nixon’s body. He whips his rifle up when he spots Speirs. Speirs puts a bullet in his chest and estimates, by December they will be worse off than ever before. 

Bastogne and Foy without Nixon. Winters, without Nixon.

He’s wrong.

Winters is strong. Winters can force the past behind him for however long it takes. Winters can wait until he swims alone in Hitler’s lake to hold his head in his hands and cry. Much doesn’t change otherwise, but Malarkey never hesitates.

-

“Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Turcius deny it,” Lip says again.

Speirs says, “I did those things. I’ve done worse. I will do worse. I will do it again, if I have to.”

“Sir?”

“Every choice I’ve made I’ve only made with a forced hand. Every moment I question whether I am doing the right thing, whether I have.”

Lipton is pensive.

“I am confident with the choices I’ve made.”

Lipton laughs, “These men aren’t really concerned about the stories. They’re just glad to have you as our CO. They’re happy to have a good leader again.”

“They’ve had you, First Sergeant.”

-

Often, they make it to Carentan but they don’t spend Christmas in Bastogne every time and the 504th is cornered against Ardennes until Easy finally breaks through the force in Eindhoven.

Easy takes Foy every time. The town waits for them in the burrows of Belgium. Speirs may not be among them the sixth and eighteenth and twentieth time but he hears the whisper of snow in hell down the countryside.

They say, “did you hear Easy took Foy without a single casualty?”

They say, “I can’t believe they lost so many of their men.”

They say, “those were good men under a bad commander.”

They say, “that’s a good man they have leading the charge.”

-

There’s no end to it.

From a calculative standpoint this is probably Hell. 

If he were a true Christian man he would fear for his soul. If he held fear for any almighty God he would be pensive, consider his life and what is likely a most deserved hellfire.

-

“Flash.”

“Thunder. Thunder!”

“Blithe.”

“Sir?”

“Got some nervous privates in your company.”

“We do, sir. We do. I can vouch for that.”

“They’re afraid.”

“Yes.”

“It’s good to be afraid.”

“Sir?”

“We’re all afraid.”

“Sir-”

“There’s no disappointing these men, Private. Worry about disappointing yourself.”

-

“This has happened before.”

“History repeats itself.”

“No kidding.”

“Keep off it as much as you can,” Roe ties the bandage over his ankle. “Don’t let me catch you pacing. If you’re gonna do it, do it out of my sight.”

“Perconte has scissors. If you’re looking for them.”

Roe hums, “Perconte?”

“Déjà vu. That’s French, right?”

“ _Already seen_ ,” Roe agrees, “My grandmother believed it, not to be a trick of the mind, but a prophecy, sent by a watchful angel. Trying to protect you.”

“No angel tried to save me from ricochet.”

Roe almost smiles, says, “No, I imagine there’s always something more important to do.”

“It’s almost like I’ve seen this war a hundred times. I feel like I’ve lived this. Seen this winter, and the snow, and the inside of my foxhole, for years.”

Roe takes the morphine Speirs hands to him and quickly tucks it into his bag.

Speirs says, “I think I’m stuck here.”

“There’s a seat in the jeep if you want to head to town for a bit, Captain Speirs.”

“Tonight’s going to be a long night. It’s best I stay here.”

Roe brushes snow off his knees as he stands. This is the third time he looks Speirs over slowly. The third time a dreadful stillness stiffens him. The third time he’s cautiously given up on helping him. Or maybe it’s the fourth. 

-

There’s a place in Liebgott’s foxhole for lessons in German.

Speirs finds time to talk literature with Webster and strategy with Nixon.

He smokes sweet cigars with Bull, learns everything there is to know about Kitty Grogan, sips old scotch with Bill Guarnere and his boys until his voice is alcohol-raw. Powers shows him how to shoot the wings off a fly. Buck makes bets and Luz backs him up and Speirs still learns how to win.

He spends a life knocking Dike’s teeth out.

He spends a life demoted to sergeant and loyal to Easy.

He wastes a life on mercy and compassion.

It doesn’t end.

-

Speirs is in Carentan and Talbert is screaming.

Blithe crunches through the woods and Speirs steps to him.

His gun turns before his shoulders, he’s got the barrel of the gun at a great angle for Speirs’ neck before he even finds his footing. In the pale light Blithe’s teeth shine and grit.

“Flash,” Speirs says.

“Thunder,” Blithe breathes, “Thunder! Lieutenant Speirs, sir.”

“You hold that weapon well, Private.”

“Sir?”

“You’re going to be fine out there.”

Blithe lowers his gun slowly. His finger lifts off the trigger and his grip tightens.

“These men count on you. But, don’t forget to count on them, too.”

Blithe closes his eyes, nods. 

“You’re going to be fine.”

He smiles.

He doesn’t die outside the farmhouse. He’s still shot, he bleeds into Roe’s hands and chokes for Harry to save him, but he sees England again, and his hometown, and his sweetheart. 

Speirs is there to hold his hand in the mud.

When Roe and Nixon hurry Blithe back to base, Harry is there to offer him a cigarette.

He says, “Shouldn’t you be with Dog?”

Speirs says, “Yes.”

-

“After the war,” Lipton sits in the quiet gloom of the church. “What are you going to do?”

Speirs folds his report and tucks it into his jacket, “Why do you ask?”

“I heard, about the way you talked to Blithe. Harry told me how he stepped forward after what you said.”

“This war doesn’t end for me.”

“You’re going to stay in the military?”

“I never really thought about it,” Speirs says. “I don’t think anyone’s waiting for me in the states.”

“Would you stay in the army just for lack of anything better to do?”

“I would stay in the army for a purpose.”

“Would you go back to the states for a purpose?”

“What purpose?”

“A place in Huntington,” Lip says, “A place in a small town. It might not be your style, but it’s better than here. It’s better than war.”

“Blithe would have made a good soldier.”

“He will make a better man.”

“You make a good soldier.”

“Sir?”

“These men have you. They’re lucky to have you, First Sergeant. And you won’t be first sergeant for long, First Sergeant.”

Lipton understands, he smiles.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” Speirs says.

-

“Huntington,” Speirs begins.

Lipton looks up, a bottle of Hitler’s finest scotch in his hands and a big grin from ear to ear. 

“What’s it like?”

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you.”

“No.”

“You’re a bad liar for a man so good at poker.”

-  
Speirs wakes to the hum of a plane.

Lipton is half-asleep beside him. 

“Lieutenant.”

“Ron,” 

“When do we land.”

Lip winces as he adjusts himself in his seat. He looks at his watch.

“Another few hours.”

His clock reads early in the morning.

The sun hasn’t risen and the plane is steady. 

Lip stares at him hard. “What are you thinking about, Ron?”

Perhaps it must have been a hundred times, it must be, that an hour ago he would check and recheck his parachute. He would be sitting between a praying boy and a stone cold soldier. That the plane would rock and shake and shudder and he would begin again.

“Normandy.”

Lipton nods, and smiles, “A lifetime away, now.”

“Feels longer.”


End file.
